Science Reporter Ron Bailey With The Truth About Fracking
I've just seen a lot of freakouts about fracking, but I've been consumed by my book revisions, so I'm just getting around to reading about what it is. Ron Bailey, reason's science reporter has a good piece on it, debunking the myths.

I was finally inspired to read about it this morning after getting a neighborhood e-newsletter saying my new LA City Councilman (in addition to -- asininely -- wanting to rename the 90 Freeway) was busy with this:

Fracking involves injecting pressurized water combined with sand and small amounts of chemicals to crack open shale rocks so that they will release trapped natural gas. Generally, the shale rocks are thousands of feet below the aquifers from which people draw drinking water. No doubt to the dismay of activists, President Barack Obama appears to endorse the process. "Sometimes there are disputes about natural gas," he said at his climate change speech last week at Georgetown, "but let me say this: We should strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer because, in the medium term at least, it not only can provide safe, cheap power, but it can also help reduce our carbon emissions."

The president gets it, but a lot of activists don't. To help bring them around, I thought I'd take a look at some of the misleading claims made by opponents of fracking. Fortunately I just got a fundraising letter from fine folks at foodandwaterwatch (FWW) urging me to sign and send in a petition to the president to ban fracking. The letter is a nice compendium of anti-fracking scaremongering.

Falsehood 1: You can light your tap water on fire. Fox made this claim famous in the first Gasland movie when he showed a resident of Colorado striking a match as water came out of his tap; the natural gas dissolved in the water burst into flame. Yet the water was tested by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, which reported to the resident: "There are no indications of any oil & gas related impacts to your well water." The agency concluded that the natural gas in his water supply was derived from natural sources--the water well penetrated several coal beds that had released the methane into the well.

The FWW letter warns, "When fracking loosens gas, it can cause methane to migrate into nearby household wells and drinking water." It adds, "Your home could explode, like the house that blew up in Pennsylvania and killed three people." This appears to be a reference to the 2004 case of Charles and Dorothy Harper and their grandson Baelee, in which natural gas migrated into their basement from some new nearby wells being drilled by the Snyder Brothers production company.

This artfully constructed section of the letter wants readers to conclude that fracking caused the deaths of the Harpers. Yet the wells in question were conventional gas wells; no fracking was taking place. The Harpers were killed by negligence: The company had not made sure that the casings on the wells were properly sealed with cement. (Cement is poured down around the well's steel piping to prevent gas or fluids from traveling upward and coming in contact with exposed rock along the borehole, where it can leach into drinking water aquifers.) Fracking technology had nothing to do with the tragedy, for which the Snyder Brothers made court-ordered restitution to the Harper family.

Another house exploded--fortunately without significant injury--when natural gas seeped in from a well in Ohio in 2007. In this case, the Ohio Valley Energy Systems Corporation was fracking an old conventional well whose cement casing was inadequate to block new supplies of highly pressurized natural gas from migrating into nearby water wells. Once the company fixed the casing, the problem was solved.

As A. Scott Anderson, a senior policy adviser with the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Wall Street Journal last year, "The groundwater pollution incidents that have come to light to date have all been caused by well construction problems." As the number of wells increase, so too will the chances that some will not be properly cemented, but that's not a problem inherent to fracking. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that the vast majority of natural gas explosions do not involve wells at all.

Read his whole piece but, I will say, I especially liked the hysteria-tempering rational thought he applied at the end:

Make no mistake: Any industrial process can go awry, usually through human error. And not everybody is a saint: Venal people will try short cuts that end up harming the innocent. When mistakes are made or short cuts taken, the culprits should be punished and the victims fully compensated for their losses.

But don't assume those villains are the norm. Over 500,000 gas wells are currently operating in the United States. Most of them manage to avoid blowing up houses, poisoning drinking water, making it hard to breathe, causing cancer, or being worse than coal.

Comments

"Most of them?" when Bailey says "most" of the half-million I assume he includes non-fracking wells? Anyway, I think for the sake of those uncomfortable with fracking it would make sense to compare it to conventional wells rather than to lump them all together with vague non-statistics.

Perhaps I'm missing something. It's been done.

Aaron Dyer
at October 16, 2013 7:59 AM

My husband and I overheard a couple complaining about fracking at a bar. Their real beef was that it might open up more cheap energy sources instead of making the unwashed proles get serious about cutting back on consumption. Then they drove off in their $80,000 Tesla.

Astra
at October 16, 2013 8:20 AM

Enlightening excerpt Amy, thanks. I would like to see some statistics on how many of these wells have construction problems, especially compared to conventional wells.

(Deep Water Horizon being another oil well with cementing issues).

There is some evidence too, that fracking isn't just letting natural gas come up, but radon as well.

I am still not sure that fracking should be allowed helter skelter under the land of residents that oppose it without more regulation, inspection, well testing and water testing.

That said, renaming the 90 is terribly idiotic.

jerry
at October 16, 2013 8:38 AM

I think Astra nailed it. The thing about drilling a water well is, you never really know what you're going to get. In a lot of areas, it's not the simple thing that it's made out to be, and the well users often wind up going into the water treatment business for themselves, so to speak. I was just reading last week about someone who died because he was poisoned by hydrogen sulfide that was in his well water.

Radon is present in conventionally drilled gas wells. However, it's easy for the refinery to remove. Jerry does have a good point about mineral rights -- a lot of people don't realize that they probably do not own the mineral rights under their property. State legislatures over the decades have been very sneaky about that.

Cousin Dave
at October 16, 2013 9:22 AM

Who gives a frack?

Patrick
at October 16, 2013 9:25 AM

And every one of those opposed to fracking uses energy that was not produced by the beating wings of organically fed butterflies.

MarkD
at October 16, 2013 12:26 PM

I live in an area where it is quite common for radon gas to accumulate in your basement.
The reason it does is because radon gas, is given off by decomposing granite.
Build your house over an underground granite formation, and it will be leaking radon.

A fan pulling air out of your basement will stop the buildup, and I am even less concerned about small amounts of radon leaking out of oil and gas wells, because generally no one lives in a concrete container directly over the wells, trapping radon, and allowing it to build up.

Isab
at October 16, 2013 12:35 PM

Also, over a million wells have been fracked in the last thirty years. It is nothing new, or particularly dangerous.

Isab
at October 16, 2013 12:38 PM

Also, over a million wells have been fracked in the last thirty years. It is nothing new, or particularly dangerous.

Yeah, it's funny how it grew to be a hot issue. My father was in the oil and gas industry his whole career and pointed out that we have been doing this for 40 years. I interned for Exxon one summer and we covered reservoir flooding, pretty much necessary in the Permian basin to get anything out. The innovation with fracking are the chemicals used and the fact that they can extend into shale they couldn't process before but the method is old hat. Accordingly, I can see objecting to fracking on water use grounds in drought-ridden areas, but most of the other arguments seem like finding issues with a method one is determined to reject from the start.

Astra
at October 16, 2013 1:25 PM

Maybe it can and has been done well, but it seems like it's being done badly in western Pennsylvania, with disastrous results:

Maybe Radwaste can reassure me that te recent study regarding the radioactive water in one of our streams is nothing to worry about.

Michelle
at October 16, 2013 1:28 PM

Michelle - I wonder where you get that idea. I process radioactive waste, so I just already know about things that you could look up yourself if you knew where to start.

Lots of issues are sold to the public as disasters to sell tissue. Usually, the media exploits the public's ignorance of the issue at hand. It's important to get terms straight, especially those by which exposure is described, but many people do not want to learn the basics. What is Honey Boo Boo doing?

Industries routinely get in jams when they process in new areas or in new ways - or, simply assume that because they have not had an incident, they do not have to spend shareholder money on the idea that an accident/incident will happen. I do not excuse them. At SRS - until recently, when the Feds decided that radioactive waste can be turned off and not watched or processed - we've had the luxury of not caring about the bottom line, or educating shareholders about the necessity of establishing preventive safety measures.

What "recent study" are you referring to?

Radwaste
at October 16, 2013 2:06 PM

Maybe Radwaste can reassure me that te recent study regarding the radioactive water in one of our streams is nothing to worry about. -- Michelle at October 16, 2013 1:28 PM

If you take a hike along the Appalachian Trail, please take a Geiger counter along with you. There are many spots along it that you will actually find small chunks of radium laying along side the trail.

Cannot get to the actual study - best I can do is links to articles that reference the study.

...and I wish we were paying you to do your job.

Michelle
at October 16, 2013 3:28 PM

Maybe Radwaste can reassure me that te recent study regarding the radioactive water in one of our streams is nothing to worry about. -- Michelle at October 16, 2013 1:28 PM
If you take a hike along the Appalachian Trail, please take a Geiger counter along with you. There are many spots along it that you will actually find small chunks of radium laying along side the trail.

So blaming fracking for it is lack of prior knowledge.

Posted by: Jim P. at October 16, 2013 3:10 PM
Yes, and nuclear fuel is processed uranium, which is also a naturally occurring element.

As for natural gas, and crude oil leaking into the water supply, this has almost nothing to do with fracking. There are hundreds of thousands of places on the earth where petroleum products are found on the surface of the earth, and bubble up naturally into the water supply and everywhere else, without the evil Halliburton being even remotely involved.
What do you think the Le Brea tar pits are?

Isab
at October 16, 2013 3:29 PM

Jim, not necessarily - at least one article mentions that the radiation was markedly higher downstream from the frack if facility than upstream.

- sorry, limited in what I can pull up with touch typing on a phone here and there.

Michelle
at October 16, 2013 3:38 PM

Jim, not necessarily - at least one article mentions that the radiation was markedly higher downstream from the frack if facility than upstream. -- Michelle at October 16, 2013 3:38 PM

The one link you posted was to the NY Times. I trust the NY Times to be fair and balanced like I trust Obama to be looking out for my best interests.

But if it is true, why can't all the people or groups downstream use the EPA and the rest of the alphabet soup along with their own resources to prove it?

Then it would be a class action or a similar suit once they determine a source. But yelling "fracking caused the radiation" is like yelling "gays destroy marriage". Give me a cause and I'll back it up. Right now for all we know is that erosion has finally gotten down to a chunk of uranium or radium. Give a definitive source before blaming it on something; i.e. cause and effect.

As noted by Bailey above -- there were cases of fracking petroleum caused the issue, but was cross-posted to indicate it was natural gas.

Jim, after 3 swigs from the bourbon bottle, two pours, and one set from a sweet band, I am *thrilled* to be on what I am pretty sure is the bus home. I hope at 6 am I am indeed back in western Pennsylvania, and not too embarrassed by my thumb typing here.

That said, I think in the NYT article is a mention of a piece of legislation that, if passed, would have given the PA gov't the teeth needed to do something about this radioactive-water mess.

Michelle
at October 16, 2013 9:02 PM

Maybe Radwaste can reassure me that te recent study regarding the radioactive water in one of our streams is nothing to worry about.
Posted by: Michelle

So are you equally worried about the huge source of radiation that takes up 96% of all matter in the solar system and microwaves our planet all day long?

Is the risk to me and my neighbors - and folks downstream - equivalent?

Michelle
at October 16, 2013 10:06 PM

No.

Is the risk to me and my neighbors - and folks downstream - equivalent?

Michelle
at October 16, 2013 10:07 PM

Guys, do not use the TWO WRONGS fallacy to attempt a defense of increasing public health risks through industrial processes!

Also - it is fallacious to claim that information is incorrect based solely on where you see it. I have to say that, even as I must stress that an editorial is NOT an information source.

Now- strictly speaking, the statement, "There are many spots along it that you will actually find small chunks of radium laying along side the trail..." is incorrect at best. Radium is a metal, highly active chemically, easily oxidized, and its longest-lived isotope is an energetic gamma and alpha emitter. When you talk about a "chunk" of it, you are talking about quantities colloquially understood to be visible to the naked eye - and this is the material that burned Pierre and killed Marie Curie. Short story: if you can see Radium and there is no shielding between you and it, you are being killed. This, and Radon, are produced by the decay of heavier elements found in rock formations, but this process does not produce so much as a milligram in one place due to decay-chain action.

Now to the study cited at the link above. This passage appears: "Radium levels in samples collected at the facility were 200 times greater than samples taken upstream. Such elevated levels of radioactivity are above regulated levels and would normally be seen at licensed radioactive disposal facilities, according to the scientists at Duke University's Nicholas school of the environment in North Carolina."

Yet the numbers are missing. The article is undisciplined, because it does not use the proper terms (contamination is the presence of radioactive material, radiation or radioactivity is the transmission of energy from the contamination to its surroundings) or units to describe the contamination levels. For instance, the unit for the decay rate discovered in any liquid can be expressed in microcuries per milliliter (µCi/mL) or picocuries per millileter (pCi/mL).

Yes, the standard unit for the decay rate of radioactive material is the Curie.

I looked at 7 other Web pages reporting the event. All 7 reported basically the same thing, without any numbers to actually describe the event. If I come back to this, I may find a paper with the right information in it. I haven't.

"200 times" something should have generated more concern for reporting discipline. Sadly, it did not.

This risk must be compared to the ROI, not to other events or risk evaluations, and the method for reducing this risk will be different from that used for other activities.

Our principle at work is that there shall be no personnel exposure to radioactive material without a material benefit, and then, measures SHALL be taken to minimize exposure to those personnel. The release of this material to the grade, or to an aquifer serving a water treatment plant intended to produce potable water, is a mistake which should be punishable by law as negligence.

It would be where I work.

Radwaste
at October 16, 2013 10:33 PM

Fun stuff: in 2010, one of our waste tanks at SRS had a dose rate over 2000R/Hr at 1 meter above the waste level. If you were exposed, this would exceed your annual Federal dose limit for radiological workers in nine seconds.

Ten years ago, a friend of mine pulled a 200mL sample from that tank. It set a radiation alarm off that was 103 measured yards away.

This particular tank has not had new material added to it since about 1990, so it's actually not as "hot" as it once was.

Building atom bombs is tough. We sample the waste tanks to make sure we know as much about what's in them as we can...

Radwaste
at October 16, 2013 10:45 PM

Michelle, the reason we're dissing the source is because we've all been down a million rabbit holes that started with those same types of sources. They always end up being one of two things: (1) A bunch of lamestream media sources all citing each other in an endless loop; there is no original source. (2) The source is an activist group with an axe to grind, that either conducted a "study" designed from the outset to reach the desired conclusion, or they just flat made the shit up. And we're all sick of chasing these white rabbits. As Raddy pointed out, millions of pages of statute law and regulation already exist that would be more than sufficient to address the problem if a problem actually existed.